Also, I got out the Mothers Mag and Aluminum polish for our Front Weld Wheels and ZOW! They are really clean, very sharp, very shiny. looks awesome. I also have a new set of valve covers that are aluminum and I started polishing them with it last night. They are coming up VERY nicely. Very bright finish. The valve covers are great because they are slightly taller, have no lip and are wider allowing more room on the valve area for our stud girdles. I am also cutting custom oil breather holes in them so they match on each side. Its going to look very sharp under the hood.

Finally – we have alot of stuff going on in our personal lives and many things we have planned around being able to race this Sunday. As is the case with drag racing, though, we have zero control of the weather. And this is a big deal because the weather report right now bookends Sunday with rain. Sunday is just supposed to be overcast. Overcast is good for racing, but you rarely see overcast with low humidity.

So here is to hoping that we get to take our shiny Firebird out in the spring air on Sunday with minimal delay and trouble. We’ll let you know.

We are going to build a high horsepower race engine.

It is going to be high compression, and either a 400 or 455 block.  We have both sitting in the garage, so it will be a matter of determining what stroke we are going to use, and which blocks are in the best shape for this application.  Also, we are going to consider buying new main caps that have the splayed bolts to add some rigidity to the bottom end.  Shouldn’t be too big of a deal since we will need the block line-bored for our new internally balanced rotating assembly.  Usually we wouldn’t necessarily go for this trouble but with this engine we are stepping into previously uncharted territory.  That territory is to use something other than stock heads and crank.  We are still using a stock block, and we have used after-market pistons with steel or aluminum rods on several engines.  I just don’t want to see this thing implode because we didn’t choose a solid block or take the extra steps to beef up the bottom.

I imagine it will take a month or two until I get the block picked out and have a plan for what parts we will be buying first.  Its going to take some discussion with dad on rotating assemblies.  There are some great combinations on the Butler Performance website.

The other thing that we are going to have to discuss before we can get to buying parts is whether we are going to use O port heads or D port heads.  The reason this is important is because of the cost of headers – and budget is certainly a concern here.  We have some O port headers, but they are pretty rusty – they also have different clearance issues with regard to the ride height of the car.

So there is alot to consider.  We’ll try to keep the blog posted with details.